1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates in general to a congestion control method, and more particularly to a congestion control method for a femtocell.
2. Background
In a mobile communication system such as a 3G network, a femtocell (or a cell) connects to a mobile user equipment (UE) in a household or a small area via an air interface, and connects/directs the user equipment to a network of a service provider via a broadband network to achieve mobile data flow division. Thus, indoor communication quality may be improved while also providing audio and data services at low costs.
The femtocell may be categorized into a home node-B (HNB) and a home-evolved node-B (HeNB). In the femtocell technique, small areas (or referred to as beehive cells) having wireless coverage are allotted in a regional areas such as a household, business unit, or a similar small-sized area, to provide wireless coverage and access services for a user equipment.
When requirements for network resources exceed capabilities of access equipments, network performance becomes degraded to result in congestion. The congestion may generally be solved by increasing the number of femtocells deployed, and yet another issue of increased costs is raised. Therefore, maintaining a balanced service amount is crucial for keeping congestion under control. In practice, to maintain a balanced service amount, a congested femtocell is prompted to enter a barred mode, so that a user equipment (UE) will be redirected to other neighboring small areas (or referred to as neighboring cells) to share a part of the service amount to the neighboring cells.
However, the dismissal of the congestion from the congested femtocell may undesirably affect the congested femtocell. For example, in the event that signal quality of the neighboring cells is less than that of the original cell, UE will again request for an access once the congestion is dismissed from the previously congested femtocell. Since usable resources of the previously congested femtocell already approach the brink of saturation, the congested-dismissed femtocell receiving the request for the access shall be further burdened to again incur congestion of the femtocell.